


By Your Own Hand

by PocketFell



Series: Random Daneel Oneshots [2]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Based on a Dream, Even if we don't see the happy part, Gen, Happy Ending, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:16:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27534376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PocketFell/pseuds/PocketFell
Summary: Daneel takes a sword to save someone's life. It's touch and go.
Series: Random Daneel Oneshots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2012515
Kudos: 1





	By Your Own Hand

There's hands holding her up under her armpits. There must be, because the disconnect between her legs and her head means that she can't be doing it herself. The hands are pulling at her, insistent that she keeps moving even though all Daneel wants to do is lie down and go to sleep.   
"Dani, come on. Keep moving."  
There's a twist in the path. The high rock walls make her think she's in the mountains, but the memory of where she is or why she's here seems too distant to really mean anything. From behind her, far in the distance, is a deafening roar. The ground shakes beneath her and she remembers why they were here. A burst of purpose grips her and she lurches forward several steps, before collapsing to the floor, hands clutched to her side.   
She pulls them away and they come back covered in blood. It's a deep red colour, and for a second she thinks about how it matches her shirt perfectly, before her head lolls back and she's staring into Aneryin's eyes. 

  
Aneryin. They were here for something. Something important. A village maybe..? "Daneel, we have to keep moving. The villagers..."  
Aneryin trails off, her eyes turned in the direction they'd been travelling. And Daneel remembers. Squanty. The Pious. Everything they'd worked for, tried to protect, would be destroyed if that creature got its way.   
There's a string of flags strung across the path over her head and she reaches up to grasp it. Her hand, sticky with blood now, connects and she pulls weakly. The flags strain away from the wall, but manage to lift her weight away from the ground.   
Aneryin's hands come back to support her, and Daneel begins the arduous trek further along the path. The terrain doesn't make it any easier, all stairs and rocks and other things to get in the way of feet that don't want to work. And Aneryin, try though she might, isn't much help. Dani wonders for a second why Jericho hadn't stayed behind to help carry her, it certainly would have made much more sense. But Jericho... Something had happened to him in the fight. The memory is distant, like she's fighting through molasses to reach it, and she still can't quite connect. The same thing that had hurt her had had its way with Jericho too. It had taken Zelyth and Lorelei together to get him out of there. And she and Aneryin had been behind, making sure none of the other creatures were following them.   
When Daneel had collapsed, Aneryin had been the only one there. Her healing magic clearly wasn't working on whatever this wound was. Daneel is still on her feet, against all the odds, and gets a surge of energy as they come into sight of a tunnel. The rest of the party are sheltering there, surrounded by several people who have the look of pilgrims. 

  
They all look up as the two approach, Daneel's staggering footsteps for once louder than Aneryin's. Zelyth is leaning against the wall beside a sleeping-- please Gods let him be sleeping-- Jericho, and Lorelei has a hand on the halter of a horse. The pilgrims, 3 or 4 of them, are crouched along the opposite wall. There's a fear in their eyes that belies the calm way they're talking to each other. They seem to have willingly surrendered the horses, and Lorelei begins the difficult process of hefting her husband up onto the largest one. Daneel goes to help, but as soon as her hand leaves her side she collapses to the floor once again, and this time there is nobody fast enough to catch her.   
A look passes between Lorelei and the others, one that Daneel is too dazed to see, and then there are hands on her arms again and she's sitting up. Her vision is all red, but she feels herself being lifted onto the back of a horse by hands strong from work and allows herself to melt into the touch. Her instincts are yelling at her to fight it, to keep herself aware of her surroundings and find a defensible location where she can finish the job the monster started. 

  
Her mother's voice comes to her then. _Better to die in dignity by your own hand than to suffer the dishonourable blade of another._ But then the hands are gone and she's left to the air and she thinks that maybe this is worse.   
Distantly, she feels blood seeping into the top of her trousers and worries for a second if it's getting into her pouches. There are items in there that won't appreciate the blood-- and ones that will, a little too much.  
Then the horse is moving under her. Maybe it has been this whole time. And there's the roof of the monastery they were trying to protect comes into sight. Perhaps this wouldn't end too badly after all. Eyes closed, Daneel allows herself to slip from the saddle, falling to the ground with a thud she doesn't feel as unconsciousness claims her completely. 

**Author's Note:**

> This one was based on an absolutely terrifying dream I had, and follows the plot of it pretty much exactly. We leave off a little before the dream does, but it's important to note that Daneel did recover in the dream.  
> (FWIW the dream also had a giant robot coming to destroy the monastery but I felt that including that interfered with the tone a little bit)


End file.
